Telia signs e-commerce agreement with City of Gothenburg

2000-09-06

In Sweden, the City of Gothenburg (Göteborg) has signed an agreement with Telia covering the provision of an e-commerce service that will enable the City to make purchases over the Internet. According to plans, however, the service will be provided by a new company for public sector e-commerce that Telia and FöreningsSparbanken (Swedbank) are in the process of establishing. With the new agreement with Gothenburg, the newly launched company will now provide e-commerce services to the three largest municipalities in Sweden. Stockholm and Malmö have signed agreements with Telia earlierThe City of Gothenburg expects to introduce e-commerce services quickly and on a broad basis within all of its administrative services departments and companies. The ready-to-implement solution for B2B transactions over the Internet is called "Telia InköpAbonnemang", an Internet subscription service for purchasing operations. Today, a large number of suppliers are connected to the service which will enable the City of Gothenburg to simplify its public procurement activities quickly. The agreement covers the introduction of Telia InköpsAbonnemang on a full-scale basis. According to plans, Telia's and Swedbank's future joint venture company for public sector e-commerce will be responsible for installing and operating the service. The new company was presented at a press conference on August 18 and its operations will be based on Telia's established technological platform and on Swedbank's financial expertise and strong ties to the municipal sector. In two years the company expects to be a leading provider of Internet-based public e-commerce in the Nordic countries and Baltic Sea region. "We are very pleased that the City of Gothenburg has chosen our solution," says Telia's Stefan Bergelind, who will be president of the new joint venture company. "The City of Gothenburg has substantial experience and know-how in e-commerce and will be an important customer for our company's development of marketplaces for public sector e-commerce. Gothenburg's choice consolidates our position as the leading provider of e-commerce services in Sweden." Approximately 30 municipalities and companies in Sweden, primarily in the public sector, will be using the services of Telia's and Swedbank's new company.

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